


A Dawn with No Light

by orphan_account



Series: Among the Stars [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Amazing, I guess?? technically, M/M, Male Lactation, Reverse Petstuck, Sibling Incest, dave's kink is respect, intersex dave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:48:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7237936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time, Dave Strider is transferred to another ship, away from everything he's known.</p><p>And this was decidedly not what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dawn with No Light

Everything is fine.

That’s what you tell yourself, sitting in the dark; you repeat it over and over to the hammering heart inside of your chest, beating a tattoo you can feel in your tongue. Your breath coils at the back of your throat, makes you pull it out every second. Everything is fine.

You’re on a strange ship, but everything is fine. They pulled you out of your room, the only thing you’d ever really known in your whole life, but everything is fine. They made you walk in a gaggle of them – the most trolls you’d ever seen in conscious memory that weren’t through one side of a computer screen – and that gaggle walked into another crowd of trolls, and the noise and light hurt your head so much that you had started to tear up. But everything is fine.

It’s okay. Nice, even. Now you’re in the dark again. All by yourself. You can’t even see you, let alone anything foreign or upsetting. Goddamn pleasant, really, you reason, as you curl into yourself a little tighter. There’s a corner of the wall you shove your back up against, like that’s going to keep you safe.

Where did your life go wrong, you think. Did you piss off one of your crew? Were the eggs they took from you unviable, and now you’re being… What? Sold as a pet? Sold for parts?

The door slides open and you wince, unable to stop a hiss as your eyes slam shut. Fuck. You hope they don’t think you’re aggressive, you hate sedatives –

“Dave?”

The sound isn’t entirely organic. It sounds like a human voice overlaid with something metallic and crackling. Your eyes stare up, still leaking, trying to find a fix in the total darkness.

“I’m… Not going to hurt you. Can I come closer?”

You don’t know what the hell is talking to you, let alone who. Humans can’t speak Alternian this clearly, and there are about a million modified versions you’ve heard on television, in movies. You’ve listened. You know. The voice sounds human, but…

“Yes.” You say, one of the few words that the human body can replicate perfectly. ‘No’ is almost impossible, much to your everlasting chagrin. Not that you’ve had much practice in ever saying it, anyway.

Whatever it is walks forward, and you feel the bed you’re curled up on dip under its weight. The heat of another body radiates as they lean forward. Their breath smells sweet with something your mind gropes to remember.

“You can’t see shit in here, can you?” they ask.

“Yes.” you say.

“I thought so. Fuckers just put you away like some goddamn cargo. Are you okay?”

The question is a puzzling one. But it’s also not one you ever want to consider too deeply, given you’re perpetual status as Thing, so you just agree. “Yes.”

Whatever they are, they can sense your discomfort. You don’t know how, but they do, and you feel a warm hand settle on your knee. It just rests there, and you try to convince yourself it doesn’t mean anything. Then again, you’ve never been touched in a way that doesn’t mean anything, so how would you know?

“Are you hungry?” they ask.

“No.” You try, but mangle it, same as always. The hand on your knee flexes before it peels away.

“I’m… Gonna give you something, little man. But I can’t talk to you while you’ve got it, okay? So I’m gonna need it back.”

It doesn’t make any sense, either. But you’ve learned a long time ago that nobody gives a shit about what makes sense to you, so you do what you always do; you shut your mouth and sit still and hope to some higher force you’re pretty sure doesn’t exist that whatever is coming isn’t a lethal injection.

You hear a clicking noise, feel the bed creak as they lean over. Something metal and vaguely warm slides around your neck, and when you feel an electric hum against your throat, your eyes tear up again.

It’s a collar. They put you in a fucking collar.

“ _Fuck_.” You hiss, going to pull at it before the metallic overlay of correct Alternian meshes with your voice. You jump. “What the fuck?!”

“Eloquent.” they say, and a chuckle rolls after it. “See what I mean, now you can talk and I can’t –“

“I hear you.” you correct them, skin prickling with what might be excitement. Or fear. You barely distinguish between the two, anymore. “I mean, I… Can understand all the humans in recordings. You’re clearer than any of those. I – Who are you?”

There’s a thousand more questions bubbling from the back of your mind, but they interrupt before you can get to the next. “Dirk. Dirk Strider. I guess I put more effort in being understood than understanding. But it’s pretty sweet you can do that.”

“Strider.” You say, flat. You know Dirk, bastardized Derrek, a he name as far as trolls are concerned. But Strider. Fuck. You can’t see it, but you can feel his grin.

“Yeah. Strider. I asked to meet with you specifically. Been reading the ship rosters for sweeps now. Looking for one of us, I mean.” His hand touches your knee again. Something low in your gut twists. There’s so little variation in breed structures, breeds have a look. He’s you, in a different iteration but you, and it makes your face heat.

“Why?” you ask.

He draws a breath in. Holds it.

“I don’t know.” Dirk admits. His hand flexes atop your knee. “I’ve met other humans, but. I don’t know. I just needed to meet you.”

Silence overcomes you. Your throat is already sore, you’ve talked more in the past few minutes than in the past sweep. But you can’t make sense of it, that you would be the preference of anybody. Your selling point is the function of your body. You can’t bear children, the alteration of your musculature won’t allow it, even if your ovaries had any eggs to offer. He can’t see it, but you’re only average in breed appearance. The extent of your knowledge is what you can pick up from television or movies or videos on grubtube.

Overwhelmingly, you feel like you’ve betrayed his determination.

“Are you hungry? You never answered.” Dirk tries.

“No.” you say, and the crackling overlay of Alternian makes it proper this time. “I had my meal this evening.”

“Dude. It’s morning.” he says, and you feel a frown on your face.

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Fuck. You eat once? What do they feed you, mega kibble or something?” His tone makes you press back against the wall a little more, though you don’t move your legs. As much as you hate how disappointed he seems to be with you, you don’t want to lose contact.

“Nutrition shake.” you say, voice much quieter. “Like everyone else.”

“Shake. As in those godawful emergency rations?” His hand grips your kneecap hard, you can hear what you recognize as anger creeping into his voice. Nobody has ever been angry with you. Not directly, anyway. You find out it’s pretty fucking unpleasant.

“I’m sorry.” you tell him, and it’s only then that his hand falters.

“No. No, no, fuck. I’m not mad at you. It’s just. I can’t believe they feed you that shit.” he says. “No wonder you’re so small framed.”

It dawns on you, very dimly, that he must be able to see you somehow. Because he reaches out and touches your arm, squeezes it for a second. “Then again, I guess it doesn’t pay to make you able to defend yourself.” he mutters.

“I don’t need to. I’m safe.” you tell him, because that’s true and because you know the words by heart. They’re in every movie, in every lecture, in every shitty fan fiction you read on the internet where some troll is pouring their heart out over their human kink. “The nutritional supplements are –“

“Not food. They’re for emergencies, Dave. You can live on them, but fuck. You shouldn’t ever _have_ to.” His fingertips trail up your arm, to your neck. He brushes the backs of them against your cheek. “You shouldn’t have to do so much.”

Your breath coils at the back of your throat again, and everything feels tight. If you can help it, you never cry; there’s no point, you’ve known since you can remember that nobody will come and comfort you because of your tears. But there’s something about the proximity of another human being that makes you come very near. The fact that he sounds like he cares so much, when the only thing that’s ever cared about you is you, and you alone.

When he leans forward, you open your legs to accommodate his body on yours, your chests resting on top of one another. His hair smells of things you can’t name, his skin is muskier than yours is. It’s not unpleasant, not with the solid weight of him against you, his body all lean muscle and warmth.

Predictably, your body reacts. There’s no way around it, all the contact you’ve ever had in your adult life amounts to something sexual. Even common medical checkups always end with genetic material collection, a dose of slurry burning its way through your body. And with Dirk between your legs, your robe is already rucked up to the seams of your thighs, leaving plenty of room for the friction of his pants.

His hand holds your chin, and he kisses your mouth, soft.

It isn’t a desperate, hungry, dominating thing like when Karkat does it. It’s gentle, and slow, and you can feel him breathing through his nose just as gently. Like you’ll start, like you’re fragile.

You can’t be mad.

You feel fragile.

“Is this what humans do when they meet?” you ask him when he pulls up for a full breath. His nose rubs the side of yours.

“Sometimes. I can stop. This can stop. We can talk, or I can leave –“

You shake your head desperately. “No. No, I. I want you here. Like this.”

This is what you know. This is what you’re familiar with, at least, as familiar as you can be with any of what’s happening to you. You thought that getting a bed a couple of perigees ago was an upsetting change, so all of this is more… More than you’ve ever been asked to handle.

Dirk doesn’t question you. His lips find yours again.

The change in you isn’t as dramatic as when they feed you slurry. It’s a pleasant kind of warmth that spreads through your body from your core, it’s breaking out into gooseflesh when Dirk’s hands run the rim of your robe, fingers tracing some of the ornate embroidery the jadebloods on your ship stitched special. It’s a bright, garish thing in the light but it feels beautiful in the dark, and you sigh soft as he carefully unties your sash.

He doesn’t need to, he could fuck you without ever pulling your robe off. But somehow the connection is better this way, better when he peels off his own shirt, too, when he wriggles down his pants enough to lay all of himself up against you, skin against skin. His hands stroke your stomach, absent but careful, and he kisses the hollow of your jaw.

Dirk’s fingers slip down between your legs, stroke your bulge curiously, tracing its shape. They go a little lower, too, trailing through the slick heat in the seam of your nook, and you feel the heated huff of breath that comes out when he rubs his own bulge against it.

“I can’t bear young.” you tell him, and feel his mouth smile against yours, like you’ve said something funny.

“Babies, Dave. Human young are called babies. But considering I’m infertile too, I don’t think that matters.” he says, and his hand strokes your stomach. “Is this okay? Are you okay with this?”

You don’t really answer that. It’s easier to kiss him, to lift your thighs a little and squeeze at his hips, drawing him down. The hand at his prick shifts, and you feel the blunt tip of it against your nook.

There’s no hissing or tensing. There’s no mad writhing to try to get it into you as quickly as possible, no burning stretch. There’s just the feeling of pressure giving way to the shape of him, rocking in to you little by little. His hands slide to your thighs for a second, grip the bottoms of them as he rocks forward and back, forward and back, not at all like the smooth, sharp press of the machines, or the relentless twisting of Karkat’s bulge.

He doesn’t kiss you again until he’s inside, until one hand can be spared to stroke your face, your body, like he’s making sure that you’re alright. You feel certain that if he can see you, he’s really looking. It makes warmth blossom inside of your chest, makes you feel someone is pumping your pusher hard and it’s bound to burst at any second.

Dirk’s bulge is better than the pod’s simulation of what humans should like. You find yourself clenching up around it, like your body is hesitant to let it go. But it’s not just what’s inside of you, it’s the rocking, lighting up nerves around your nook you never really knew you had. His tongue on your neck isn’t helping things, and he keeps sucking in kisses there, laving at it before he moves down, and down.

You’re barely coherent, even with the collar, when he moves down to your nipple. The thought of stopping him doesn’t even occur when he licks at it, when his lips close around the bud and he sucks. Your mouth is already twisted in a groan, and your cunt clenches around his cock hard, and you barely realize what’s happening when you start to drip into his mouth.

For just a second, he pauses; you wonder why before you remember that he’s probably never been fed to produce milk, that he’s a guy, that most human men don’t usually do that without some coaxing. But you feel his hips buck forward, sharp, a second later, and his head goes right back down to where it was. You were right: feeding someone instead of a tube is more sexually gratifying than you’ve ever had the chance to realize.

It all feels so good, and you feel so close to him. One of your hands curls through his hair, cradles his head as he sucks and kisses your nipple, laps away the milk that leaks out. One hand is at your prick, and another at your thigh, and his hips are still rocking against yours, his bulge swollen and so good.

There isn’t much warning before you’re coming, before you’re moaning, hot, into the air. It’s not desperate, it’s not hurt, it’s just good, it’s all just good. When Dirk empties out into you, he pulls off of your chest and kisses the corner of your mouth, holding you so fucking close.

You’ve heard the term afterglow, but you never really got to experience what it meant until now. You feel glowing; you feel radiant. You feel like a small star as he wipes you down with his shirt, as he draws back and lets you drape yourself over his side.

He’s warm, and he smells sweet with something your mind still gropes for. But you know the feeling now, too, so alien to you before: home. Safety.

Dirk holds you in his arms.

For once, everything really is fine.


End file.
